{"id":235501,"date":"2025-09-18T04:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T04:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235501\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T04:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T04:21:13","slug":"black-communities-prepare-for-potential-federal-action-by-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235501\/","title":{"rendered":"Black communities prepare for potential federal action by Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months, President Donald Trump has described, with dubious evidence<\/a>, some of the nation\u2019s major cities as unsafe \u2014 ones largely run by Democrats with Black mayors at the helm. As Trump continues to forcefully expand his federal military deployments, Black and Brown New Yorkers and legislators can\u2019t help but wonder if their city is in the crosshairs.<\/p>\n

They also wonder what position New York City Mayor Eric Adams is taking.<\/p>\n

The thought of soldiers taking over city streets has occurred to Adams. So far, he has said he is opposed, but wouldn\u2019t mind federal assistance in other areas. <\/p>\n

\u201cCollaboration with state and federal law enforcement has always been a key part of our public safety strategy,\u201d said Adams in a statement. \u201cWe do not need a deployment of the National Guard to our city. Instead, we hope to continue to work with the federal government to stop the flow of illegal guns to our city from other cities and states. We remain committed to keeping New Yorkers safe through smart, precision-driven policing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, Trump federalized the National Guard in Los Angeles to squash immigration protests. By August, he moved to take control of Washington, D.C.<\/a>, ordering troops onto the residential streets around Capitol Hill, which was allowed because it is designated as a federal district.<\/p>\n

Other cities Trump has either raided, tried to move on, or spoken about sending troops to are also all Black-led<\/a>, including Chicago, Memphis, Baltimore, Oakland, New Orleans, and St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s rhetoric about \u201cmanufactured emergencies\u201d has long echoed conservatives who have denounced cities, especially those that are majority Black, as \u201clawless or crime-ridden and in need of outside intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Statistically speaking, major crimes<\/a> have trended down for decades and there are fewer instances of gun violence<\/a> this year citywide compared to last year, according to NYPD stats. The issue of shootings and other violent crimes is by no means eradicated, and even warranted New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to order members of the National Guard into the city\u2019s subway system<\/a> to help the NYPD with patrols in March 2024. However, Hochul has denounced Trump\u2019s sending troops to the city very vocally.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York City is the safest big city in America and home to the best police force in the world, and our results speak for themselves: Crime is plummeting across the five boroughs, with major violent crimes reaching record lows,\u201d said Adams. <\/p>\n

This year, Adams\u2019s office rolled out NYPD Quality of Life Teams<\/a>, or \u201cQ-Teams,\u201d an initiative to police issues like noise, parking, homeless encampments, and public drug use citywide. <\/p>\n

Despite Adams\u2019s brand as the candidate cracking down on crime, and his at times amicable relationship with the Trump administration and Republicans due to his immigration agenda, or with law enforcement because of his background as an NYPD officer, there\u2019s no real guarantee that the city will be safeguarded against the whims of the president. <\/p>\n

On September 10, Adams quietly announced that the city filed an amicus brief<\/a> to show support for California Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s lawsuit, Newsom v. Trump, against the federal government\u2019s unlawful deployment of the National Guard in LA. The brief asserts that there was no rebellion toward the federal government that justified a military takeover or any \u201clawless mob violence\u201d under the Constitution\u2019s First Amendment right to protest and free speech, and that soldiers actually impeded the LAPD\u2019s ability to do their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s unprecedented deployment of the combination of military troops and federal agents, so federal forces, to our cities is unnecessary,\u201d said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, in a press briefing<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s inflammatory and it is a dangerous abuse of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shamsi said the escalating threats and use of troops to police everyday citizens are profoundly un-American, and are creating an atmosphere of fear and hostility. \u201cThere\u2019s tremendously strong resistance from Americans about intrusion \u2014 military intrusion into civilian affairs \u2014 and that has a very deep root in our history,\u201d said Shamsi.<\/p>\n

This also comes days after a Supreme Court ruling allows the Department of Homeland Security to use racial profiling practices against Latinos and Spanish-speakers in LA and surrounding counties. The wanton use of \u201cunlawful and violent measures,\u201d stop-and-frisk methods, raids, and \u201csnatchings\u201d by federal troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in D.C. and LA has had a \u201cdemonstrably devastating impact on immigrant communities,\u201d said Chandra S. Bhatnagar, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office said that they don\u2019t want to be \u201calarmist,\u201d but are taking every threat of deployment seriously and have \u201ccontingency plans.\u201d They would prefer not to publicize these plans at this time, said the mayor\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

The Mayor\u2019s office said they have considered how a military presence could affect the city\u2019s Black and Brown communities that already have fraught relationships with the NYPD, due to historic over-policing and the killings of unarmed Black men. <\/p>\n

Trymaine Lee, a veteran reporter who wrote \u201cA Thousand Ways to Die<\/a>,\u201d explained that Trump\u2019s claims about urban gun violence and crime are history repeating itself in Black communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is, as they say, more of the same,\u201d said Lee in an interview with the Amsterdam News. \u201cWe\u2019ve been used, abused; our pain has been weaponized and politicized from the very beginning. The fear-mongering. There is no more dangerous figure in American history than the Black man in the white imagination. It\u2019s no shock that Trump is trying to use Black people to stoke fear, and also feed these kinds of fascist impulses that this administration has. It\u2019s sad that we should not be shocked. The playbook has already been drawn, but what\u2019s concerning is that it\u2019s going to beget more violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alaizah Koorji, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), also spoke recently about their organization\u2019s amicus brief <\/a>in District of Columbia v. Trump, which emphasizes the harms of militarized policing for Black people in the U.S. <\/p>\n

\u201cHistory is clear. Militarized policing does not improve community safety and, in fact, can significantly harm Black people and other people of color, who already experience rampant police abuse. The deployment of National Guard troops is no different, and no amount of fabricated crime emergencies will change that,\u201d said Koorji in a statement. \u201cAllowing a military occupation to continue in our nation\u2019s capital is counterproductive to public safety and contrary to the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City is a differently run municipality than D.C., in that legally, there\u2019s no precedent to send troops unless they are invited in, but the mayor\u2019s office said they do plan to take more legal action against a deployment if necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York city and state leaders have been clear that the forced deployment of National Guard and other federal law enforcement is unwelcome and unnecessary in our city,\u201d said Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who chairs the City Council\u2019s committee on criminal justice. \u201cThese continued threats from the Trump administration to send military and federal agents are about making a political statement, not improving public safety. The Council is preparing with our partners to respond to any attempt to attack working-class communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a tense mayoral campaign to replace Adams has stymied some people\u2019s belief that the city is prepared should troops arrive at the gates. <\/p>\n

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said the fear mongering around police and crime issues in the city goes back to Adams\u2019s first run for mayor in 2021. Reynoso has backed Adams\u2019s opponent in the race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s a larger conversation. We\u2019ve had middle-of-the-road centrist Democrats [who] have made policing and fear the central component to their campaigns,\u201d Reynoso said. \u201cEric Adams spent millions of dollars in his campaign originally to scare us, to show us, or to tell us, that this city is out of control on crime. He then spent the next three years telling people that it\u2019s not as bad as they think it is, so he inserted fear into their hearts, and then he\u2019s trying to pull back and change the message to say that New York City is safe. He already did his damage, and that work that he did during that campaign to sow fear of something that wasn\u2019t necessarily happening is being used as fodder by Donald Trump.\u201d <\/p>\n

Like this:<\/p>\n

Like Loading…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months, President Donald Trump has described, with dubious evidence, some of the nation\u2019s major cities as unsafe…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":235502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,39677,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-235501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-politics-noir","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115223389252312644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}